Transdimensional Pit Stop
by Jill O'Brien
Summary: Highly irreverent and tongue in cheek. Think it's great fun having a portal to Middle Earth in the basement of your apartment building? Think again.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Take seriously at your own risk. Any damage done to your mind if you do is your own fault so don't come whinging to me about it. Completely irreverent and tongue-in-cheek and I hope I haven't set Tolkien to spinning faster in his grave.

I carried my hamper of dirty laundry down the basement stairs, hoping the building's two washing machines were free. I hated having to wait for the machines to come free because Eru only knew when the person ahead of me would come down and take their wash out and-

"LAUREL!" a high-pitched voice shrieked from the direction of the building's storage rooms. I rolled my eyes. What now?

"Be there in a minute!" I shouted back. I never should've given over my storage room to Merry and Pippin, even if there was a permanent portal to Middle Earth in the back wall. I should've known they'd turn it into some kind of 24/7 rest stop on the transdimensional highway. At least the elves were nice enough to help keep it cleaned up and they'd done wonders for the mildew problem.

Thankfully, both machines were empty so I was able to get my laundry going and in short order I was opening the door to the storage room for my flat. "Your humble servant is here," I said dryly, leaning against the doorframe. "What can I do for you?"

One of the many Took relations present pointed to several boxes of Bass. "We drank what you brought down earlier. Could you bring us more?"

I stared at the stack of ten boxes, jaw slack. No. Way. They had _not_ finished all that ale. "You drank _two hundred and forty_ bottles of Bass between noon and now?" I exclaimed. "What are you doing, mainlining it?"

The hobbit stared at me. "Is that faster than drinking?"

"Nevermind," I said quickly. "I don't have any more ale. That was supposed to last you the rest of the week. If you want more, you'll have to get it yourselves." The twenty hobbits around the room groaned. "Don't complain. I told you those ten boxes would have to last you."

"We thought you meant until the end of the day! That's not enough to last us all week!" another Took (or maybe he was a Brandybuck; it was hard to tell) piped up.

"It is where I'm from," I countered. "I can't afford to buy you seventy boxes of ale a week and I'm done buying you any if you're going to drink it all in a few hours."

The groaning was louder this time. "You want more ale, you'll have to get it yourselves."

The sounds of cursing and wood breaking came from the television. "What are you watching?"

"Jerry Springer!" one of the lady hobbits said excitedly.

I groaned. "Sweet Eru on a pogo stick," I murmured under my breath. To the hobbits, I said, "Any of you try to imitate in here what you see on the tele, I'll drag you all to the mall and tell any teen girl I see you all need hugs and a makeover." They'd heard the stories about what Frodo, his cousins, and Sam had been subjected to when they'd come through portals elsewhere into Modern Earth and fallen into the clutches of fangirls. "And, ladies? I'll take all of you to get your legs and feet waxed." Satisfied I'd threatened them into submission, I went back upstairs to finish cleaning the bathroom.


	2. Chapter 2

I opened the door to storage area #2 and found myself staring at a dart-wielding elf. I quickly slammed the door shut and a moment later, I heard a 'thunk' roughly where my head had been. "Post a warning next time!" I barked irritably as I opened the door again and quickly moved out of dart-throwing range. "I'd like to remain free of head wounds, thank you. And wounds in general, really."

"You get used to it," Boromir remarked philosophically from the loveseat. "Death does have its advantages."

"I'll take your word for it. What news from Gondor?"

Boromir took a swig of his lager. "The usual."

"Excellent. Arwen and her ladies are in need of more brocade." I had a booming online business going selling Elven and Gondorian garments and accessories, all made and decorated by Arwen and her ladies. Her Majesty ("call me Arwen"), being a needlework afficianado, had been only too glad to volunteer herself and her ladies to do the construction and embroidery and told me which fabric merchants to go to. "Tell Miron I sent you and he'll give you a great deal," she'd advised. That was six months ago and I had nearly enough saved to buy a house and enough chocolate and power tools to bribe the Valar to move the portal.

"The weavers are on strike."

"You said it's 'the usual' in Gondor," I replied testily. 'I should have asked Legolas yesterday,' I fumed silently. 'He'd have told me more than "the usual".'

"It is. The weavers have been on strike for a month."

"Oh. Yeah. And stop laughing! I have more to remember than who has their tits in a twist this week. I'm alive. I have more to do than sit around all day drinking beer and watching the tele."

"And it's so much work to play at your computer all day?"

"I do not 'play' at the computer 'all day'. I also have to go to the market and clean."

Boromir snickered. "I've seen your flat. The cleaning you do could be done in five minutes without breaking a sweat."

"Shut. Up. You came when I'd just moved in."

"You moved in last week?"

I spun around. "What were you doing in my flat last week?"

"I was bored. The King of the Dead insisted on watching 'Wrestlemania'."

"That doesn't mean you can just…float into my flat uninvited! And why weren't you watching that with him? I thought you enjoyed watching men beat each other senseless and get sweaty."

"No, that's Eowyn."

"I heard that!" came a voice from the portal.

"Kidding!" Boromir yelled. "Just kidding!" To me, he said, "She does."

"There is a certain appeal to buff, sweaty men. As long as you don't have to smell them," I added. "I thought you liked that kind of thing."

"Not when it's so obviously an act!"

"Point taken. Stay out of my flat in the future." I felt myself blush. "What if I'd been getting dressed?"

"You don't have anything I haven't seen before."

"That's not the point!" Men! I stalked to the mini-fridge and jerked open the door. "And all the Coke is gone. Great!"

"Oh, is that what was in the red cans? I thought the ale you'd bought tasted like orc piss."

"How do you know what orc piss tastes like? Not," I said quickly, "that I want to know. I was being rhetorical. Don't answer that." Ignorance was bliss. "So you drank all the red cans?"

"No, I only drank one. The Tower Guard drank the others. We all thought it tasted like orc piss."

"Now you know why." I grabbed a can of Sprite. "Any idea when Riders might be coming through?"

"Sorry, I don't know. Why?"

"I wanted to check up on Grimbold and his men."

"Are they the ones who went to the stable and-"

"Yes."

Boromir's face lost some of its color. "I wouldn't expect to see them for quite a while."

"I don't. I was hoping to talk to someone who's seen them and could tell me how they're doing."

"Is that all you want to know? According to Eowyn, she talked to Madril who talked to Ioreth who talked to Grimbold's wife who said it's common for the men to have nightmares and wake up screaming and drenched in sweat, Grimbold is drinking more than usual, and all of them have developed a nervous twitch that starts up anytime they see a group of women."

I shook my head sadly. "I feel horrible for them. I did try to warn them that as buff, blond men who liked working with horses, they were likely to get lots of attention."

"No man expects anything like i that /i ," Boromir said forcefully. "When Grimbold told me what happened, even I was shaken."

"Hormones are powerful things, my friend." I drained the last bit of Sprite from the can. "Do you need anything from upstairs?"

"More cookies?" he asked hopefully.

I smirked. "Why am I not surprised? I'll bake some more up and bring them down when they're ready."


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: To avoid any possible confusion, when I mention an elf by name, if I'm talking about one of Tolkien's characters I'll make it clear (unless it's someone like Elrond or Galadriel). The 'football' in here is I real /I football, which Americans insist on referring to as 'soccer'.

"HA!" I crowed, estatic I'd just landed a dart closer to the bull's eye than Edrahil, who was looking rather put out over the whole thing. "I beat you!"

"An accident," he said dismissively.

"I still beat you."

"Only once."

"As lousy as my aim is, doing better than an elf _ever_ is grounds for celebration and gloating."

"A fluke does not qualify as 'doing better'."

I shrugged and continued to smile because I knew it would annoy him. You took your triumph wherever you could get it, no matter how small the reason. Yes, it had been a total fluke but seeing him get flustered and upset by it brought a certain satisfaction. The other elves who had seen him bested by a mortal wouldn't soon let him live it down.

Over in the corner, I saw a Silvan elf talking intently to Cap'n Jack, my lovebird. I didn't know if the elf was teaching it more highly useful Sindarin and Westron phrases or trying to talk some sense into the bird about why it wasn't polite to chew on ears. Jack, bless his cute little feathered heart, now knew how to say "Where's the rum?' in five different languages. Less success had been gained in curbing Jack's chewing habits. I suspected Jack continued to chew on ears because he got a sick sense of pleasure when his victims yelped. I'd considered starting up an ear piercing business but decided against it on the grounds that I didn't feel like having to justify to the health department why a little bird spit wouldn't hurt anyone and that a wipe with an infusion of athelas before and after Jack did his thing would take care of any germs which might be present.

It was football night at the Gaffer's Rest, which meant the Ithilian Rangers and the Dunedain were gathered around the tele. It would have been wonderful if they'd all been cheering for the same team but for reasons known only to them and probably had something to do with someone insinuating someone else liked to bathe a little too often (winkwinknudgenudge) the two groups always took opposing sides. I normally stayed away on football night but grinding boredom had driven me to brave the testosterone-flooded atmosphere.

"CUT HIM DOWN!" Mablung shouted at the tele, sending a bowl of popcorn flying as he leaped up. "TAKE THE BASTARD DOWN, YOU STUPID WANKER!"

"It's football, not the battle for Osgiliath," I remarked, earning hard looks from most of Faramir's men. "What? It is. It's just a game." The Dunedain were now giving me dirty looks also. I smiled brightly at all the men, glad to see them all agreeing on something for once, even if it was because they thought I was a fool.

"Come on, Tim!" Halbarad shouted, followed a moment later by a loud unison moan by the Dunedain and various epithits about Tim's parentage and sexual orientation.

Denethor came through the back wall. "Is my son here?"

"Which one? Oh, Boromir. No. I don't know where he is." Stupid of me to even ask. It was a pity he was such an ass when it came to playing favorites with his

sons. He was decent enough otherwise.

A look of irritation played across his face. "If you see him, tell him I'll be at the Citadel." Without waiting for me to say anything, he turned and returned to Middle Earth. I rolled my eyes and resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at the portal. Just because I hosted the Gaffer's Rest didn't mean I was some serving wench to be ordered around.

A/N, Pt. 2: For everything else I wanted to say and makes more sense after you've read the chapter.

Yes, Cap'n Jack is named after He of Too Much Eyeliner, though he hasn't learned how to ask for rum just yet (I'm working on that. ;D) and he loves phone book covers and the chain my cross is on more than ears.

Yes, I did rip that off from The Now Show. Too perfect not to use.


	4. Chapter 4

I've been banned from the library at Minas Tirith. It seems the head librarian there lacks a sense of humor so when I joked about letting Jack the Avian Paper Shredder loose in the archives he took me seriously and banned me for life. He forgets I'm friends with the King and the Steward so I think the ban will be lifted in short order.

The few friendly Corsairs who travel through have taken a liking to Cap'n Jack and enjoy teaching him all manner of highly objectionable and offensive phrases such as the one which loosely translates to 'Want to raise some sunken treasure?'. Thank Eru none of them speak English. Ellandan and Elrohir are training my cats in the fine art of Pounce on the Corsair with Claws Out.

The elves have discovered the joys of going to the spa. It's mostly the female elves who love to go each week but there are a few males who join them. The Men view this with suspicion and distrust and believe that a layer of dirt and sweat protects you from germs and illness. I've tried to tell them that the only thing a layer of dirt and sweat protects you from is a social life and any success with the opposite sex but my words seem to fall on deaf ears. Aragorn was thought to be taking his life in his hands when he began bathing weekly (at Arwen's insistence) and as he hasn't yet perished his men seem to believe it's his Elven blood keeping him from being infected with all manner of illness now that his layer of protection is regularly stripped away.

Gamling was accosted by two fangirls, Marge and Molly, earlier in the week. Actually, I don't know if 'fangirl' is the right term as the ladies looked to be in their forties. Whatever the correct term is, they obviously ascribe to 'aging is mandatory, maturity is optional', with emphasis on the second part. They also obviously need glasses as they mistook him for Bruce Hopkins. What on Eru's green earth would Bruce be doing _here_, of all places? But whatever. They mistook Gamling for Bruce and I don't think I've ever seen the man so frightened, even when some orcs made the mistake of coming into the Gaffer's Rest one night. Maybe it's how they were dressed that frightened him. I should mention both were rather obese. One was wearing a broomstick skirt and a belly-baring top, allowing one and all an unrestricted view of the belly ring which was just barely poking out from her flab. The other was wearing…oh, I forget. The sight of a forty-something obese woman in a broomstick skirt and belly-baring top was enough to drive all else from my mind and require an emergency chugging of Bleeprin.

The truly scary part came the next day when a friend of mine in Florida who knows about the Gaffer's Rest contacted me to let me know that two twits from Northern New York (which is how I learned their names) were going on and on about how they'd run into Bruce Hopkins in Syracuse and how he'd been happy to see them and, according to Marge, how Bruce had been sniffing around her sister "like a dog in heat". Molly was saying Bruce kissed her and pinched her arsre. That's all my friend in Florida passed on, but she mentioned the sisters had said far, far more about the whole thing. I wasn't sure if I wanted to laugh, cry, vomit, or all three. I opted for printing out the email and reading it everyone in the Gaffer's Rest. Let's just say if anyone ever sees those two nutjobs again, they only thing they'll be posting about is how they had to flee before an angry mob. Or maybe they'll post that stars were overcome with lust for their beautiful selves and they had to run lest they be caught and have their clothes ripped off and be ravaged by lust-crazed men then and there on the street. Oye. And I thought the crap they dreamed up for romance novels was bad. I don't think that would even make it past Harlequin's editorial team on grounds of being too cheesy and sappy and the prose too purple.

Elfhelm's acting strange lately. I have my suspicions but I can't prove anything and his men won't tell me anything when I ask. I asked Eowyn if she knew anything and she got this funny look on her face and told me to talk to her brother. Okay, fine. When Eomer King came around I asked him what was going on with Elfhelm and that Eowyn had told me to talk to him. He just looked at me over his mug of ale, raised an eyebrow, and said it was probably Pippin's cooking giving him gas. Right, then. As bad as Pip's cooking is, it doesn't cause a person to have gas for more than a day or two and Elfhelm's been acting strange longer than that. I guess I'll keep watching and see what's going on. Maybe there are problems with his eodred.

A/N: Gamling's fangirls actually exist. Names and locations changed but the comments are taken from actual posts to a Yahoogroup formerly run by one of the nutjobs in regards to Bruce Hopkins' behavior at cons toward 'Molly'. They're also psychobitches from Hell who've tampered with postmarks and stated a friend of mine has an incestuous relationship with her son (among many, many other libelious accusations and remarks), but that's a whole other discussion.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: The Gaffer's Rest/the storage room posses the same qualities of looking deceptively small from the outside as the TARDIS does, only without as many rooms. Harry Potter Fanfiction University used with permission of Meir Bryn. All people, places, and things of the Harry Potter fandom belong to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Books, Warner Brothers, and anyone else who has a legal claim. If you recognize it, it ain't mine.

"Cookies all around!" I shouted, arms full, as I kicked the storage room door shut behind myself. "Hobbits by the foosball tables, the rest of you, wait by the bar!" I hurried back to the foosball table to leave off five dozen of the Urban Legend Cookies I'd baked up earlier. That's what I called them, at least, in honor of the fact the recipe came from the infamous urban legend about the $250 Neiman Marcus cookie recipe. The cookies were as good as billed, even if the story wasn't.

On top of my head rode Cap'n Jack, squawking and chirping at everyone as we passed, greeting the Corsairs with 'Your mother's a dogfish' and the Hobbits with 'Vote Gamgee for Mayor'. Various residents of Hobbiton ribbed Sam about using Jack for advertising and Master Gamgee blushed and denied having anything to do with it.

"There are five dozen cookies for all of you," I told the assembled Hobbits sternly. "I will set the container down on the foosball table. You will wait to descend upon it like a horde of barbarians until _after_ I am away from the table." I had no desire to be trampled to death. "Do not complain to me if you do not get a cookie. There are enough for everyone. If you don't get one, whinge to those who are at the front of the crowd." Slowly, I set down my pile of containers at one end of the table and removed the top one, placing it at the other end of the table and removing the lid. I carefully picked up my pile of containers and backed away, never taking my eyes from the Hobbits. Only when I was a good two feet away did I turn and start for the bar. Behind me, I heard what sounded like a pack of wolves tearing into a carcass. "Hobbits!" I muttered under my breath.

The remaining containers I placed along the bar, removing the lids as I went. "Enjoy," I told the waiting Men, Dwarves, and Elves, grabbing two cookies for myself from the last container. "Remember, tomorrow night we're all going to the Dinosaur BarBeQue downtown so bring your appetites. Be ready to leave around four. We want to get there ahead of the crowd." The restaurant, home to the greatest ribs on the planet, had advertised an 'all you can eat' special for tomorrow night. I smiled slightly, feeling pity for the kitchen staff. They had no idea what was about to descend upon them, but it wasn't like anyone would've believed me had I called to tell them to smoke up an extra large batch of ribs because thirty-something Hobbits and a horde of men's men would be coming for dinner the next night. I'd have placed reservations but the Dino didn't take them so the restaurant was going to be caught totally unprepared. "Like lambs to the slaughter," I murmured. I'd leave an extra-large tip when we were done.

The feast at the Dino was possible thanks to what the Tower Guard had earned when they joined me to work crew for a day with the local stageworker's union. The issue of ID had been easily taken care of with one trip to the Harry Potter Fanfiction Academy. The Death Eaters had loved the idea of making fake IDs and the prototypes they showed me were fabulous but they refused to budge from the IDs being portkeys which would pull any Muggle in contact with them to the old Riddle estate to be tortured, so I'd been forced to find someone else to help me out. In the end, it was Dumbledore who made the IDs. There was a small problem with the pictures on the first batch moving but he fixed that easily enough when I reminded him Muggle pictures are static.

So, armed with falsified documents, we went and worked crew for the Tim McGraw and Faith Hill concert which had come to town. The men were familiar enough with the modern world and all the devices which run by strange magic that all the equipment and wires and lights weren't a total shock, though I did have to discretely remind a few of them not to gawk several times. The lights rising and lowering were particularly fascinating to them and no matter what I told them, they remained convinced that the motors which raised and lowered the lighting trusses weren't magical devices.

The road crew for the show were singing the praise of the soldiers when we took our coffee break after two hours of hauling wires and stringing them on the trusses.

"He just picked the whole spool of wires up and carried it across the arena!" A.J., one of the lighting roadies, gushed about Artamir. "I've never seen anyone do that before. He's amazing!"

"They all are," added Gabe, a roadie working on setting up the stage. "You tell them what you want, show them how, and they go right to it and bam get it done in no time." He took a bite out of his bagel and a swallow of coffee. "We could really use them on road crew. They don't speak real good English, though."

'You don't want them. Trust me,' I thought sardonically as I ate a Boston Creme donut. The Tower Guard were extremely wary of motorized vehicles and it was only through a direct order from Aragorn they'd gotten in the van this morning. The idea of trying to get them to travel by bus all over the country for months on end was an incredibly amusing one, at least for me. The road crew, however, would probably want to string them up from the trusses before their first day was out.

By the end of the night, I was ready to string them up from the trusses myself. We'd been sent home around one in the afternoon once set-up was complete with orders to return for load out at ten, which meant we should get there by nine-thirty.

"We'll be returning while the concert is still going on," I told them on the way home. "There are a lot of special effects so it's going to seem like many strange and magical things are happening and you might think some of them are evil or dangerous. They aren't. Everything will be totally under control. People know what is going on and how it works and there is no magic or evil involved. Remember that."

"Should we be prepared, just in case?" Castamir asked.

"_No_. Nothing evil or dangerous will be happening." 'Not unless you count the drunks and the obnoxious fangirls,' I added silently. "If you have any doubts at all, ask me before you do anything." Famous last words.

There wasn't a full-fledged scene of chaos but it nearly came to that when Roger (who never stopped whinging on about his helmet and how he hated it) saw two fog machines doing what they were supposed to do and decided to hack the devices of Sauron to bits. Thankfully, Tarcil, one of his less-dense cohorts who had paid attention to what I'd said, saw him drawing a dagger to begin stabbing the nearest fog machine and stopped him. Roger didn't take kindly to the intervention and thus began an argument. Kendra, one of the sound techs, told them to shut up and stop disturbing the concert. Roger and Tarcil, of course, ignored her so they were 'escorted' from the control area outside by two well-muscled road techs and told to leave (though in much less polite terms).

I'd followed them at a discrete distance (guilt by association is such a pesky thing) and waited until after their 'escorts' to go chew Roger and Tarcil out.

"I _told_ you, Roger, not to come armed and that everything was fine and if you had any doubts to talk to me. Is there any part of that you did not understand?"

"One must always be prepared," he replied. "It is a foul thing which produces smoke without fire. It should have been killed."

I closed my eyes and slowly counted to ten. "Tarcil, I'm giving you the key to the van. I want you and Roger to wait there for the rest of us. Thank you for stopping him from stabbing the perfectly harmless fog machine."

When I returned inside, load out was just beginning and for the next three hours we were busy getting everything back into boxes and onto the trucks to head to the next city on the tour. I heard Gabe talking to a few of the Guard about joining road crew and, no surprise, they refused, saying they had no desire to travel in carriages powered by strange magic. Not much later I heard Gabe telling other road crew that the Guard were totally bonkers and he was glad he didn't have to deal with them every day (though in much less polite terms).

A week later our paychecks arrived.

"This is strange money," Aragorn remarked when he saw my paycheck.

"It's one kind we use. To turn it into the other kind, I need to take it to a money lender. If you could find the Tower Guard and tell them I need to talk to them?" Eru only knew how but I needed to teach the Guard how to sign their names in English and write 'Pay to the order of Laurel Whitney' on the backs of their checks so I could deposit them in my checking account. I sighed and rubbed at my temples, the beginnings of a migraine scratching at the inside of my skull.


End file.
